Miles and Miles Away
The Everclear Tour Log
Summer Mini-Tour '96
Click here for the current tour schedule.
Well I'm here waiting for our flight to Amsterdam in Newark airport. We have a three hour layover here so I have to write and tell you about last night. We played Wouscester, Mass., and talk about rock n roll! The club was on the third floor of a builing with a small yuppie bar on the first floor, a neon rave dance hall on the second floor, and a neon neo-classical "Hawaiian Tropic bikini contest every Friday!" kind of place. Having said that, we had a great show and got all hot and sweaty. Right in the middle of Santa Monica there was a huge commotion and we looked over and saw this massive fight going on. Right as I looked over, all the bouncers in the place jumped in the crowd, and pretty soon everyone was beating up on everybody, including the security. It was so surreal to be playing this song and watching this swirling fight going on. So we finished the set and decided to leave as soon as possible
because of all the drunk, big New England dudes screaming and fighting. I don't know how many boyfriends/girlfriends fights I saw with both parties screaming at each other, "I want to go home now!" etc. So we call a cab to take us to the hotel. I go out into the rainy night to wait for the cab on the sidewalk. As I'm standing there, out comes everyone spilling out the front door choking and shit. Apparently some fight had taken place and the police used mace inside the club's stairwell and everyone got sprayed. Anyway one of the guys in the fight tried to walk away with his friends and girlfriends and the guy who got battered pointed him out to the cops who were already there. They ran after him and four of them took this guy down. Someone in the cops radioed for backup because the guy was resisting arrest and his friends were trying to fight the cops. So in one minute there are 10 cop cars and fifteen cops on the sidewalk pushing and shoving everyone out of their way and telling everyone to back off, which no one seemed to hear. Meanwhile the cops again use mace and soon both men on the didewalk are lying in their own snot and puke. Now I'm standing in the middle of this trying to catch a cab and not get maced at the same time when another cop car comes racing up and two cops jump out pushing everyone out of their way as they rush into the club, and I'm standing there thinking, "Hey, where you going, the riot is out here?" I'm looking for a cab when I see Craig leaning up against the building's wall, and we both burst out laughing when the cover band in the yuppie bar breaks into "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which we can hear
through the window facing the street. Craig later told me before they started it, he heard the singer say, "Even though we already played this song tonight, I can see a lot of rockers out there and I know you want to rock, so we'll do it again." I also later found out that the two cops were racing into the club because Art and our road manager were trapped in the elevator of the club and had been in there a while, because no one could hear the alarm or
their pounding over the rave music blasting from the second floor. Needless to say, all of this made us late getting back to our hotel and so we missed the prom that was going on that night, so we were all bummed. We did get to sleep in this morning before we flew here and tonight we will be in Amsterdam, or maybe it's tommorrow -- I never know. -GREG
Well, whenever this rock-n-roll thing ends, I think I'm going to write a book about how to survive while traveling. Each one of us could write his own variation of this book because between us we have seen it all. Today is a case in point. We flew from Boston to Newark N.J. to catch a plane to Copenhagen, Denmark. Once we got into Newark we had to go to another part of the airport -- actually a whole other terminal down the road a ways. Not a problem usually except that the underground train system was broken and we had to load all of our gear and walk, sometimes even semi-roll on those damn carts where only two wheels seem to work at any one time, to reach our terminal. So we get to our gate and finally get to board, missing the final seconds of the Rockets/Sonics game. The flight was completely full because last night's flight to Denmark had to turn back an hour into the flight due to engine problems. Not exactly what you want to hear before you start your 7hr+ flight over the freezing ocean. So all the people on that flight spent the night in lovely N.J. and were put on our flight, only allowing one checked luggage per person. Well, of course I had my computer, so I held on to that, but checked my personal bag with my whole life in it and prayed I would see it again, as did everyone else. Well the flight was long but uneventful and we were happy to get into Copenhagen and continue on our journey. As we stepped off the plane, we asked the stewardess where we could pick up our hand-held luggage we had checked at the door of the airplane. She didn't really know and neither did anyone it seemed. So we went to the ticket desk to find some answers and to check in for our next flight to Amsterdam. Unfortunately we ended up in the slowest line with what appeared to be a trainee who seemed to have to verify everything with some superior by telephone. Finally we reached the front of the line and were promised they would find our bags, but in the meantime our flight to Amsterdam was cancelled. "Why?" we asked and were promptly told, "Because it is." The next flight to Amsterdam was 3 1/2 hours away and we could only go as standby's. So we tried to kill time in the beautiful Copenhagen airport by catching up on some jet-lagged sleep, but we were told we couldn't sleep at this vacant gate because it was not the gate we would be flying out of. We then asked what gate would we be flying out of and were told "we don't know, because the flight is 3 1/2 hrs away." So we packed up all our stuff and tried to find another gate to sleep on, but everywhere we went we were told we couldn't stay. So we became renegades with luggage carts running high on jet-lag sleep deprivation rolling though the airport. We finally found a place where we were accepted and left alone to our naps... the smoking lounge. Many hours later we went to our now posted gate location to see if we could get on our standby flight. Again after waiting in line, we didn't fit on that flight, so we had to wait another three hours till the next flight, which we were now reserved on. However, after the standby flight had departed, we were again booted out into the main airport terminal. To compesate for all our trouble our airline gave us a voucher for 100,000 Kronas that they said was good at any of the stores in the airport. That was good because we weren't allowed to leave and go anywhere because technically we were't even in Europe yet, because we hadn't gone through customs, which we couldn't go throuh anyway because all of our paperwork to allow us in was waiting in Amsterdam. Come to find that our vouchers were worth -- as with all foriegn money no matter what denomination it seems -- about $1.50 in American. So our hotdogs and cokes were on the generosity of our airline. God love 'em. So again we found ourselves waiting for three hours and finally caught our plane to Amsterdam. For lunch on the flight they served some sort of herring and cheese sandwich that I could hardly look at -- not that it mattered because I passed out from sheer exhaustion moments later. By some miracle that was not predicted by anyone including the airline itself, our luggage was waiting for us in Holland, including our hand held luggage checked at the door. The baggage lady said it had been there for hours. We couldn't believe it beat us by many hours. We also couldn't believe the honesty of the Dutch people that they would leave all of our luggage and guitars sitting in the middle of the baggage floor untouched for so many hours. So right now I'm forcing myself to stay awake so that I can acclimate myself to the time change, so I hope this report wasn't too long or boring. I'm growing sleepy sleeppy sleeeeppy slepppppeepey. -GREG
Well, after our airport disaster in Copenhagen, it was good to be able to finally get down to what we were here to do, which is to play. When we have played Amsterdam before, we were always the opening band and we played the beautiful and big Paradiso. This time we were on our own, and we played a smaller place down the street called the Milky Way situated on a strip of land between two canals. When I walked in, there was no one there. If the bartenders hadn't shown up early, there would've been no one there. The crowd finally grew to two hundred and we had a blast with them. There were many americans there and we talked about the lastest news of home. There were also many of our diehard Europeon fans -- some had driven many miles to see us. They even said they had seen the Letterman performance. His show runs over here I guess a week later than the states. Later, after the show, Craig and I walked down the street to the Paradiso to see our friends in the band Sponge, who just happend to be playing there that night. The ticket lady was a total bitch and wouldn't let us in, even though we had special tickets. So because we had played there twice, we ducked round back, snuck in and avoided secruity while running through all the back hallways, stairways, and dressing rooms till we found our way up to the bar where Sponge's party had just started. We had a great time catching up on stories and such. This morning we got up a little worse for wear from our party the night before and drove to Hamburg. Many photo shoots and interviews later we came out and rocked out for the 150 people that were there. The stage was so small that we each kept bumping into eachother but had a great time anyway. Many of the people sang the alnog to the songs with us, and it was fun hanging out and talking German with the kids after the show. Still suffering from jet lag but getting more energy everyday. Looking forward to the rest of the tour. -GREG
Man, I tell you, I'm so lucky! Not only do I get to play drums for a living but I get to play shows like we did today. It was for the Q101 radio festival and this is one of my favorite things to do because we get to see all our friends in other bands and hang out and shoot the shit with them. On tonight's bill there was Korn, Cracker, Filter, No Doubt, Afgan Wigs,Girls against boys, and finally Foo fighters. As soon as we got there Dave Grohl came over to Craig and me and said hey. He is the coolest guy. We talked about the last time we hung out and he also told me that he had just run into an old high school friend that we had in common from growing up in DC. So off I went to find him, and I did, so we had fun talking about the old days. Anyway we had a great time playing in front of so many people even though we were freezing, and we were under the lights and out of the rain unlike the crazy kids in the crowd. Tommorrow we play two shows in one day. We are aparently flying on a chartered plane between the shows which seems not good in view of the history of bands and chartered flights. La La La Bamba! So wish us well! Till next time -GREG
Well I'm currently flying from Washington DC to New Orleans. Yesterday we played in front of the most people we ever have at RFK stadium -- 60,000 or something like that. Anyway, that was a lot of fun to look out and see that many people moving at the same time. As soon as we were done we had to do a couple hours of press like CNN and MTV and other radio, TV and magazine services, so we missed a couple of bands that I wanted to see. I did get to see great shows by fav's No Doubt, Presidents of the US, and the ever powerfully amazing Foo Fighters with Pat Smear in a dress. During their set I was with some friends up in the stage scaffolding watching the crowd go crazy and almost kill each other. It was such a sea of humanity. All day long kids were carried out on strechers so much that in some places backstage it looked like a M*A*S*H unit. It was a beautiful day and a great time. Oh ya, I almost forgot the guitar player in my first band, Tension, came to the show with his lovely wife "Shorty" and it was so cool to be able to hang out with him and catch up. Tension is the band whose shirt I'm wearing in one of the pictures on the inside of our record. He brought an even more embarrassing photo of me in that band in 9th grade that I showed to a privileged few at the show. Another cool thing was that our dressing rooms were in the Redskin's locker room, and growing up in DC like I did you were a Skins fan. I was a huge fan so it was a trip to be hanging out at what once was Dave Butz's locker. From what I'm told the Skins are going to come back this year with a good team but I don't believe it.
But you know, the most fun I had that night didn't involve any music. There aren't too many people I have kept in touch with from my high school days if only because I didn't have many friends at the time. However, the ones I have kept in touch with are my best friends and I really value their friendship. Now everytime we have played DC we have always left town that
night which never left time to hang out and get reacquainted. So this is the first time we spent the night and I was looking forward to hanging with my friend Heather. She came to the show after a long day herself and it was fun showing her around and both of us freaking out over all the rock stars in attendance. We left midway through the Foo Fighters to maybe beat the rush out of the parking lot. As we were leaving, her friend Lori asked me as we were cutting through this crowd of 60,000 people if I ever get reconginzed. As I'm getting shoved around in the mad dash to the cars I looked at her and said, "Are you kidding?" We both laughed at the question as soon as it was asked. So anyway, as we drive away, they asked what I wanted to do: go dancing? go see a band? go drink little coctails? No, I wanted to go back
to Burke and see my old high school and eat at the local Friendly's. Heather was so sweet to put up with me and my "wow this is so weird to be back" comments and I had the best time in a long time just hanging out with her and her friends. We hung out until 3:30am and all too soon they had to leave because they had to work in the morning. So thanks Heather for a great evening away from rock-n-roll; it meant a lot to me even though it was soooo hard to get up at 7am the next morning... and my back still hurts!!!!!!!! -GREG
Well we've finally made it to central Canada. Finally after another airport disaster which I won't go into detail about to spare you another story involving missed flights and slow customs agents. I'll save it for my travel book which I'm convinced I will write one day in my older years. But anyway, we made it and the show tonight in Winnipeg made it all worth it. Having never played here before we had no idea what to expect, but it was great! There were so many stage dancers/divers it was crazy. Craig seemed to be having a hard time staying on his two feet. He and a stage diver even fell into my drums taking out my cymbals and mike stands during Heroin Girl. Later in the song, Art almost fell off the back end of the stage when he leaned against the curtain which he thought was the back wall. It was a great show all around and we can't wait to come back, but with our schedule it might be awhile. I'm tired again so I'm going to bed. -GREG
Well, as usual, let's see how much stuff we can pack into a four day stay in LA. We got there early exhausted from all of our Canadian dates and press but relaxed until our platinum record presentation for 1,000,000 records sold in the U.S. What an amazing feeling to have seen the success we have had after all the hard work over the last few years. So anyway, the next day we
shot our next video for the song "You Make Me Feel Like a Whore" in Inglewood. Thanks to everyone who came out and jumped around in the sun with us -- and I'm just starting to peel from all my burns. So as usual, videos take forever to do and we were there for 16 hours, but it was the most fun video we've made, so hopefully it will be cool.
The next day was the KROQ Weenie
Roast which in essence is another radio festival, one that we've never played much to my disbelief. It seems like we have played every one under the sun, but this was different because KISS was headlining in full makeup and stage show. Now you may not know, but I was never a KISS fan and Art and Craig were huge KISS fans in their early years. Of course all the bands playing the festival were all waiting to see KISS hit the stage even though we couldn't watch from side of the stage. Then the lights went black just in time with the helicopter which buzzed us from overhead with its flood light lighting up the crowd getting the anticipation growing for the big rock event. Then with a huge BANG, a roar of fireworks, and a lot of people screaming, KISS hit the stage with all four memebers in full makeup. Now like I said earlier, I was never a KISS fan, but I've come to know all their songs from listening to their CD's in the van cranked while everyone rocked out in the middle of the desert somewhere on tour. So there I was in a weird time 70's vortex where the guy next to me offered me a hit off his joint and behind me girls had
taken off their tops and were dancing, much to the crowd's delight. So anyway, they had all the gimmicks, the tongue and blood, guitar solos and fireworks. At one point one misfired and started a fire that threatend to burn down the stage if it weren't for some brave pyrotechnic crew guy who was up on the scaffolding trying to put it out with a towel. What a sight, fires and misfiring fireworks launching out into the crowd and limousines waiting with police escort. It was a rock-n-roll night all the way around.
After our day off in Disneyland, we went to the MTV Beach House and filmed some songs for a show about the Surf Rider benefit CD which comes out on JULY 2nd. It includes the song we recorded earlier this year called "Hateful" which clocks in at 91 seconds. So today we are done, a few days off before we start our Summerland Tour. So see ya all out there!!! -GREG
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